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Education The Almighty Buck Science

2003 MacArthur 'Genius Grant' Winners Announced 335

Posted by timothy from the shoulda-thoughta-that dept.
ccnull writes "This year's list of 24 MacArthur Fellows has been released. Each winner of the so-called 'Genius Grant' receives $500,000, no strings attached. 2003's winners include a blacksmith, a biomedical engineer, a computation geometer, a biophysicist, a nurse, and a short story writer 'crafting witty, experimental prose.'"
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2003 MacArthur 'Genius Grant' Winners Announced More

2003 MacArthur 'Genius Grant' Winners Announced

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  • oh well (Score:3, Funny)

    by potpie ( 706881 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @07:51PM (#7140018) Journal
    So I guess my shell-script "thinkgeek fortune grabber" wouldn't cut it.

    • Obligatory Richard Stallman MacArthur mention (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      RMS was awarded the MacArthur award in 1990 [mit.edu] for his contributions to the software field.

      This quote is interesting:

      "According to The Boston Globe, Stallman supports himself by working for two months a year as a $260-an-hour computer consultant."

      this was in 1990! I'd give him an award just for getting that rate! It just goes to show you how much RMS gave up to bring the world Free Software. Most people have no idea.

  • 500 k for this? (Score:4, Funny)

    by mOoZik ( 698544 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @07:53PM (#7140024) Homepage
    a short story writer celebrating the complexity of life's most ordinary moments (Lydia Davis

    • 500 k for this?-Deep spender. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05, 2003 @07:56PM (#7140038)
      " a short story writer celebrating the complexity of life's most ordinary moments (Lydia Davis)"

      Up next. A short-story writer celebrates the complexities of spending 500,000.00
    • Jerry Seinfeld received more than that for each 1/2 hour episode of "Sienfield" for doing the same. Hopefully Ms. Davis' writing is more interesting or humorous. but even if it isn't, it's still a "deal" as far as I can tell.

  • Why not a teacher? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mistert2 ( 672789 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @07:54PM (#7140028) Journal
    How long has it been since a teacher got a decent raise? Politicians love to make points by slamming the profession. I know there are some clunkers, but show me the money.

    Why not me? I am not going to make it in my profession.

    • Those who teach (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05, 2003 @07:59PM (#7140051)
      Those who can, do.
      Those who can't, teach.
      Those who can't teach, teach teachers.
      Those who can't teach teachers, administrate
      Those who can't administrate are on the school board.
      • Those who can't, teach.
        Those who can't teach, teach P.E.

      • Re:Those who teach (Score:4, Insightful)

        by the_2nd_coming ( 444906 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:14PM (#7140745) Homepage
        more like:
        those who can but hate kids and don't care about the future of the country but only of themselfs, do

        those who can and are selfless people who want to help the youth become the leaders of tomorrow teach.

        those who have been teachers (and therefore have the same qualities as above) teach teachers

        those who can't teach and are morons, administrate

        those who are dick head politicos who want to push the educational system into their little ideological corner and could not give a crap about what is best for the kids, are on the school board.

      • Re:Those who teach (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Isn't it more like:

        Those who can, do.
        Those who can't, talk as if they can on Slashdot.
    • Look, you knew what teachers made when you chose the profession. (If you didn't, you have an even bigger problem, but we're going to assume that you did.) You chose to become a teacher and you chose to accept the salary. Why is it that teachers are about the only group in this society who are constantly whining about being underpaid, as though their pay is some sort of moral issue? You don't hear people in any other profession whine about their pay with the same sort of self-righteous indignation that we he
      • You've proven the point for why teachers should be paid more. With the current pay scale that you are describing, people often do consider teaching but then make THEIR choice to do something that pays more. These people are ambitious and talented and want to lead a good life. In this world, the people who most often succeed are the talented ones. So by having a low pay scale, you attract many people who just want a steady income and summers off as well as attracting some great people who don't care about th
        • I was primarily interested in addressing the issue from the point of view of the guy doing the complaining, as opposed to outlining how to fix American education. From the point of view of the teacher, the choice is pretty simple. Accept the pay or find something else to do.

          If you want to address the overall problem, though, I'd say the problem lies primarily in management. Government-run schools have no incentive to become any better, because there's no market mechanism to force them to. The system squeez

        • Re:You bought your ticket... (Score:4, Offtopic)

          by QuackQuack ( 550293 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @10:10PM (#7140717) Journal
          The problem with the Union is that they tend want pay based on seniority rather than how well you perform your job, so an ace teacher makes the same as the dead wood who has been teaching just as long.

          Basically any Union exists for these reasons:
          1) To get Better Pay and Benefits for its members
          2) Better Working conditions, including getting reduced workloads
          3) Better Job Security, including protecting the jobs of incompetant boobs.

          I'm not anti-union, but most of the items on the list are not really in-sync with improving the quality of education. It just annoys me when the NEA runs ads bragging about how they care about the quality of our kids education. No... you are for the teachers, not the kids, let's be honest here. Just because the NEA or other union opposes certain reforms does not mean the reform is bad for education, if the union opposes it, it's most likely because they perceive it to be increasing the workload for teachers, or weakening their (the union's) power. Which is fine, that's what they are supposed to do. I just wish more people would see that for what it is, and not some noble act of fighting FOR their kids' best educational interest.

          Paying the good teachers extra would be a good start, it would give other teachers incentive to perform better. But the unions are against it, basically because it's too arbitrary for them. Unions need clearly defined workplace rules and pay scales, when the administration can start making arbitrary decisions, the Union loses some of its power.

      • First you say: If you don't like the pay as a teacher, get out of the profession. Go find something for which the pay is higher.

        Then you complain about teacher quality. Well if you pay people poorly, it is no wonder good people leave.

        You don't hear people in any other profession whine about their pay with the same sort of self-righteous indignation that we hear from teachers.

        Actually, you also hear it from military people and other government workers. In countries with socialized medicine you hear it

    • I want teachers to get raises.

      But I will never vote for it until the entire idea of tenure is scrapped. Screw paying for an incompetant boob for the rest of his/her entire adult life to continue to screw up kid's educations generation after generation...

      Who's brainchild was that anyway? it makes the hiring process a nightmare, causes any kind of a black mark at all to result in the firing of a teacher while it's still possible, just in case, and serves no one's interest except teachers that aren't good
      • Tenure was created to allow freedom of expression by the teacher. If he was accepted into a tenured position (say, at a University), he would be able to disagree with the University without fear of his job.



        This can be very important: otherwise the teachers become just like all the rest of the employed world; hoping that what they say or thing won't piss their boss off.

        • that's fine for private universities, if that's what it takes to attract top notch professors. In the grade and high school levels though, it seriously cripples the entire hiring process as well as makes it impossible to get rid of dead weight.

          Not an even trade off IMO for basic level education. Save it for the private schools.

    • Several of the grant receipients were University professors. So I assume you mean nursery, primary or secondary school teachers. Are you a teacher? Did you apply for a MacArthur grant? You have to apply. The tasks teacher should be doing are important ones. My own experience was that most teachers do a very uninspired job.

      I had some really good teachers. But they were the exceptions. Maybe the other teachers could have been inspiring and made a real connection to us, but lacked the strength of cha

  • Blacksmith? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MisanthropicProggram ( 597526 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @07:57PM (#7140039)
    What exactly does "a blacksmith exploring the expressive qualities of metal" mean? Does he hammer the iron until it cries?
    • LOL...

      Seriously though, take a look at the cool sculptures. [anvilmag.com]
    • It's called art. You should look into it. I hear it's popular amongst non geeks.

    • Eccentric Fund. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by zymano ( 581466 )
      This grant sounds to me like some people that have no clue of what to do with their money.

      There are probably real researchers studying cancer or some biotech that need the money.

      I don't get it.

  • Pedantic Point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05, 2003 @07:57PM (#7140042)
    It's not a grant if there are no strings attached, it's an entitlement.

  • lotsa metal (Score:5, Informative)

    by rettops ( 446572 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:02PM (#7140064)
    anvilmag.com has photos [anvilmag.com] of some of the works of the blacksmith who just got a MacArthur award.

    Just think how much iron $500,000 will buy!

    • Srew that, I'd spend the half-mil on "big iron!" And I'd run emacs on it (maybe)!
    • just over 499,999 dollars worth.

    • Just think how much iron $500,000 will buy!

      Well, I googled around a bit and found a commodity price for some kinds of steel to be $200/ton. Iron is less refined than steel and might be cheaper. OTOH, "art quality" iron might convey a premium. So. He could buy $500/ton premium metal and make something that weights 1000 tons, or cheap scrap at $100/ton and make something that weighs 5000 tons. That may sound like a lot, but iron is 7.86 times as dense as water. Oh... and the quotes were in metric t

  • The article short on details on how you apply. (Score:4, Informative)

    by zymano ( 581466 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:08PM (#7140093)
    You don't apply ?? I still don't know how the people are found for the grant ?

    Bit of Article.....

    Several hundred nominators assist the Foundation in identifying people who should be considered for a MacArthur Fellowship. Nominators, who are appointed each year and serve anonymously, are chosen from many fields of endeavor and challenged to identify people who demonstrate exceptional creativity and promise. A 12-member Selection Committee, whose members also serve anonymously, meets regularly throughout the year to review nominee files, narrow the list, and make final recommendations to the Foundation's Board of Directors. Typically, between 20 and 25 Fellows are selected each year.

    • No, you don't apply. People don't apply for Nobel prizes either.

      A bunch of people are invited to send in nominations; a selection committee looks at the nominations and decides to whom the prizes should be awarded.

      Generally speaking, the people at the top of their respective fields will be sufficiently well known that they will be recognized by one of the nominators; in the case of Nobel prizes, people are often nominated every year for five years or more before they are given the prize.
    • It's better that way - you really don't want the pool of contenders to be "lookit me! I'm a GENIUS!!!!" types...

      "Well guys, it looks like all our applicants this year are total friggin' nutbars. We've narrowed it down to Doc Brown with some sort of Flux Craptacular or something and Alex Chiu....This brings me to an important point - do we have to give away this money? I mean, can't we just rent out Scores for a week or something?"

  • First... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cliffy2000 ( 185461 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:11PM (#7140108) Journal
    They turn me down for a Nobel.
    Then they turn me down for an Ig Nobel.
    Now, the Genius Grant passes me over.
    Why don't I get some recognition for my first-hand studies on the effects of sleep deprivation due to intense Slashdot reading? Dear Lord, WHY???

  • Disturbing (Score:5, Funny)

    by the gnat ( 153162 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:13PM (#7140115)
    One of the winners, Erik Demaine, is 22 and is already a CS professor at MIT with a gigantic publication list. I find this both inspiring and profoundly demoralizing. He'd better not be getting laid more than me too.
  • I, for one, welcome our genius overlords.
  • Which makes me think of how much subjectivity there is to the notion of "worthwhile pursuits" versus "worthless pursuits."
    Sometimes useful things come out of "useless" research.
    And sometimes the "crackpots" like Velikovsky serve an important function: to make us reflect on how we've arrived at our current models of the universe, how to make those models more detailed and thorough, and how to articulate them to fellow scientists and laypeople alike.

  • Erik D. Demaine (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gurudev Das ( 694832 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:18PM (#7140152)
    Erik Demaine is also a recipient. He is the one who showed Tetris is an NP-complete problem [sciam.com].

  • How about... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by teval ( 683486 )
    Not giving a person 5000000 for something like that?
    How about giving 50 people who are smart.. but can't afford university a chance? How about giving them a life that they wouldn't have been able to afford?
    Or donating it to help the kids in Africa.. or anything that's mildly useful?
    Seems to me like this is just the recursive pattern in our society "Let's make the rich, richer" Sure.. some of these people aren't rich, but they sure aren't starving. I'm sure if they've been noticed by this foundation that the

    • Re:How about... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:28PM (#7140206)
      Private parties should give money to whoever they want w/o idjits like you saying "what about the children......what about Africa......what about the poor"
      Give YOUR money to whoever the fuck you want to and stop telling other people how to spend theirs!

    • Re:How about... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by exhilaration ( 587191 )
      think of what your money could do in the hands of people who really need it.

      I have a better idea, why don't YOU sell all your furniture, all your electronics, all your clothes except those on your back, and send the money to Africa? You don't need those things do you? Think of what your money could in the hands of people who really need it.

      No? So shut the F up.

  • double reward (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hey ( 83763 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:21PM (#7140174) Journal
    It always kills me when people with interesting, fun jobs get money and awards. Like this and the Academy Awards. To qualify for these awards you first have to have a great job that you love. In that case do you really need more award.

    Where's the award for the programmer who refactored 500K lines of hopeless spaghetti code left over by some idiot who hard no idea about structured programing?!

    • Re:double reward (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:24PM (#7140190)
      It always kills me when people with interesting, fun jobs get money and awards. Like this and the Academy Awards. To qualify for these awards you first have to have a great job that you love. In that case do you really need more award.

      That's not entirely true : you can be employee of the month at McDonald's.

    • Well for those of us who are unemployed, the reward be actually getting a paycheck every 2 weeks.
    • Or the person whoi designed a piece of sftware that saved a bank over a Billion Dollars a year?
      Thatswas how I learned I would never be a captian of industry. If Someone saved my a Billion dollars a year, I'd give them 1%.

      I'm not bitter, I got a football for my efforts.

    • Re:double reward (Score:3, Insightful)

      by spectecjr ( 31235 )
      It always kills me when people with interesting, fun jobs get money and awards. Like this and the Academy Awards. To qualify for these awards you first have to have a great job that you love. In that case do you really need more award.

      Where's the award for the programmer who refactored 500K lines of hopeless spaghetti code left over by some idiot who hard no idea about structured programing?!

      Yes, but you seem to be ignoring that to get the great job that you love, you have to persistently wade through a
  • The MacArthur Fellows Program is designed to emphasize the importance of the creative individual in society. Fellows are selected for the originality and creativity of their work and the potential to do more in the future

    Next year's recipient: Darl McBride for inventing a new business model : making huge obnoxious noises and outrageous claims to divert attention from his insider's trading and stock pumping activities.

    It's creative and he has the potential to do more in the future.

  • Ivy league representation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @08:26PM (#7140198) Homepage Journal
    Interestingly, among the academics given the MacArthur grants, the Ivy league schools Harvard, MIT and Yale appear to be producing a number of these folks whether at the undergraduate level, the graduate level or the faculty level. Many of the recipients appear to have done at least some time at those institutions.

  • This sort of philanthropy is very rare in Australia. Does this happen elsewhere in the world?

  • What you don't want to know... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @09:17PM (#7140410)

    ...is that the decision making process for these awards includes a swimsuit competition.
    Which still doesn't help me. Blech.

  • Flying Blind quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by bokmann ( 323771 ) on Sunday October 05, 2003 @09:56PM (#7140639) Homepage
    10+ years ago, there was a short-lied show on Fox named "Flying Blind". The girlfriend of the min character had a roommate who just wandered around in a bathrobe, apparently unemployed, but always had money for stuff...

    About halfway through the second season, the main characted asked, "Just what do you DO, anyway?"

    Bathrobe guy: "I have a Genius Grant..."

    Main Character: "You? But you're not a genius!"

    Bathrobe guy: "I was the night I slept with the lady who gives out the grants..."

  • then I missed out on this.

    Now I'm really depressed.

  • I find it interesting that 38% of the recipients can be found in two cities (9 recipients in New York and Boston) that maybe account for 5-6% of the total U.S. population. Throw in another 2 recipients in Connecticut and Georgia and the "East Coast" accounts for nearly half of all the awards.

    Probably more out of skew is 2 awards going to New Mexico residents (8.3% of the awards going to an area with 0.75% of the population).

    Closer to skew is 4 awards (16.67%) going to California residents (10-11% of the population) and even more so if you count that as "West Coast" instead of just California.

    When you deduct the two awards to international residents, that leaves 5 awards (20.83%) to be spread among the other 44 states. Those went to residents of Colorado, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.

    Does that mean the remaining 39 states do not contain sufficient genius to warrant an award? Does that mean that we have an abnormally high concentration of genius in New York and Boston? While New York and Boston residents would probably like to think so, maybe put on big foam fingers and drunkenly shout "We're Number One", the rest of the nation would likely disagree.

    Going through a portion of the historical listing of winners (last names starting with A-F), we find that out of 164 winners, 70 (42.7%) resided in the states of New York or Massachusets, and 30 (18.3% of total recipients, 62.5% of all New York state recipients) were in New York City. An additional 56 (34.1%) were in California, but those were more evenly spread out with only 11 (6.7% of total, 19.6% of state) being in Los Angeles.

    So historically, based on that list, you have nearly 77% of all recipients being concentrated in 3 states and over 18% of them in just one city.

    I'm sure the recipients of these grants are deserving, hard-working, geniuses in their own right. I just wonder if their geographic location is giving them an unfair advantage over geniuses in the rest of the U.S.

    - Greg , though that still weights Cali's share of the awards above its share of the , just short of half of the recipients (11) are on the East Coast, 9 of them in New York or Massachusets (the other 2 are in Connecticut and Georgia).

    • What you're seeing are the concentrations of the top "genius" schools, like Harvard, MIT, Yale, etc. There are simply more high end schools in Boston, New York, and California than there are in other places. Since this is an academic award, it only makes sense that this is the case. Some of these people are probably from "the other 39", but currently live near their school. You can be born a genius, but you need an equally good education to take full advantage of it.
  • Any rich guy who leaves his money in a foundation rather than in escrow for a set of objective prize awards, such as the X-Prize, has no recognition of the failed history of foundations.

    Hell, the folks at the Ford Foundation are proud of the fact that they call Henry Ford "the grave spinner".

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